If life is what we make it, I’m going to need more duct tape. – Nathan

Ilove a well-written “25 Things I’ve Learned in 25 Years” post.

In them, some brave soul attempts to distil a lifetime of experience into a curated list of lessons.

It’s a daunting task if you consider the experiences themselves count for only a fraction of what people take from life. There’s the entirety of their inner thoughts and emotions to consider. All the connections and meaning a person attributes to their interactions. Even if they find a way to synthesize and communicate these thoughts in a succinct way, it’s usually not enough to make a person stop and think, and even more rare for them to believe and take action.

Because single thoughts rarely impress us past grade school. What started as deep insights turned into tired clichés. And clichés make us believe we still know things we’ve forgotten. We hear a cliché, something we used to know, and brush it off because it doesn’t seem new or valuable anymore.

But true insights cut away the meaninglessness that’s grown on top of an important idea, revealing the value underneath. And sometimes this understanding, or reminder, can change everything.

The trick is knowing which insights are still sharp enough to get the job done. One woman’s trash is another man’s gold and what not. So sift through these little nuggets I’ve collected. Maybe you’ll be reminded of something you used to know.

I take no authorship of these thoughts. Like anything worth a damn, I paraphrased, misquoted and outright stole them in my quest for rhyme and reason.

For best results, pause to add thinking to each before continuing on.

1. There are two reasons why people don’t talk about things; either it doesn’t mean anything to them, or it means everything.

2. The biggest obstacle to the next great thing is the last great thing.

3. You either get better or you get worse; you never stay the same.

4. Day by day nothing changes, but when you look back everything is different.

5. We don’t see the world as it is. We see the world as we are.

6. If you’re not paying for it, you’re not the customer; you’re the product being sold.

7. So often travel elongates the conversation, not broadens it.

8. The people who are the hardest to love are the ones who need it the most.

9. Even disasters that strike those we are closest to only reach us filtered through our own colossal egotism.

10. Words are only symbols for the things they represent, often making the unreal seem real.

11. It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.

12. And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music.

The person you are today is not the person you were yesterday. And the person you’ll be tomorrow will not be the person you are today.

With every action (or inaction), we’re either getting better or worse.

In business, companies either grow or they die. There is no business as usual. New technologies disrupt markets. Changes in marketing channels introduce new competitors. Customer demands change as people change. Businesses don’t get to be the same year after year. Businesses either adapt or they die.

In health, how you exercise and what you eat either makes you stronger or it makes you weaker. As you age, your body loses its ability to fight off your bad habits. Metabolisms slow. Injuries persevere. Hangovers really hang over. You either treat your body well or pay the consequences.

Even relationships are subject to this truth. To grow healthy relationships requires continuous effort and investment. Distractions, our own selfishness and “priorities” will all erode a relationship if left unsupervised. You either invest in the relationship or invest in its end.

The message isn’t to go fight for the same. It’s to fight for better. Be deliberate in your thinking. Be deliberate in your actions. Choose what to improve and what to let die.

I said I wanted to be a writer. They told me I should be ready to bleed.

I’m battling a major bout of writer’s block.

To get something to paper, I thought it would be interesting to capture a stream of consciousness. And to be honest, the resulting word vomit turned out a little weird, a bit dark and somewhat incoherent. But as an act of vulnerability, I decided to let it fly.

Maybe it will convince you to share your own thoughts in a more vulnerable way.